Yale SOM Education Leaders Conference

A leading business school hosting an education conference? Ten years ago it was unimaginable. Now it happens annually in New Haven. The students organize a great conference, get edu-superstars to attend, and turn out in droves.

Jon Schnur kicked off the Racing to the Top conference with a review of RttT and complimented the president and secretary for their leadership (Jon’s advice had a lot to do with that).

Breakout sessions were well constructed and moderated. I joined Mike Connelly from Mosaica, Doug Borchard from New Profit, JB Schramm from College Summit in a session on capitalization and sustainability moderated by New Schools’ Jordan Meranus. We discussed the pros/cons of various forms of capital and the importance of having a scalable/sustainable business model regardless of tax status.

Ellen Winn, EEP, moderated a great lunch panel with Wendy Kopp from TFA and Virgina’s new commissioner Gerard Robinson.

An afternoon highlight was the portfolio strategy panel including Paul Hill, Steve Adamowski, Garth Harries, and Dacia Toll. If we had 50 more of them, we’d be higher in international edu-rankings (the next 50 of them may have been in the audience).

The hallways were filled with edu-stars: Steve Barr, Larry Berger, Judy Rizzo, David Coleman, Brad Jupp, James Merriman, Eva Moskowitz, the Uncommon team, Alex Johnston, and brothers Magee. If you missed it, you’ll want to go next year (or do something like this with your favorite B-school).

That Yale, Harvard, and Stanford have B-schools actively engaged in edu-leadership is a sign that we’ve entered the era of the edupreneur.